Road testing the Easy Walk harness

When
we went to see Sasha to see if she would be the right dog for us, her
owners told us that they had very rarely put her on the lead and that
she was a puller. "That's no problem," I said brightly, thinking
that such a lightly built border collie would hardly be felt on the end
of a lead. I was wrong. Bernie tried holding her at first
and he said she was really strong. He has a bad back so a pulling
dog wasn't ideal. We swapped dogs and Sasha stopped pulling
a bit but a little way down the road Bernie complained that Jamie was starting
to pull. We
swapped back again...and again...and again, but each time Bernie held a
dog it started to pull. This pantomime was
repeated every morning until I bought the Easy Walk harness from petplanet.
I was tempted to get an Easy Walk harness for Bernie as well, or at
least send him to training classes, but that's a different story.

The
harness was despatched very quickly and it came complete with a smart
red collar. I did eventually work out how to put it on with the
help of the illustrations on the back of the pack. One day
everything will come with instructions that say, "Start here if you're
one of those people who can't put up a deck chair or tie their
shoelaces."

Having done it once though, and worked out how it
went it was easy to do it again. The pictures below show Sasha
looking attentively at me and waiting for the next instruction on how to
do the most perfect heelwork. Jamie looks on admiringly. Oh,
alright then. Sasha's actually saying, "For heavens sake, have I
got to wear this thing again, and are we going for a walk or
aren't we?" while Jamie's thinking, "I'm glad it's her and not me."

After using the harness for the best part of a week I
realised that Bernie hadn't grumbled once about a pulling dog. In fact
he said, "It's like magic. She's not pulling at all."
Praise indeed from a man who has been kicked out of bed early in the morning and has been dragged along the
road to a field in order to exercise his wife's second dog.

We have actually found that Sasha pulls slightly now that she's used to
the harness, but she is still easily controlled. We don't use the
harness on her all the time. The aim is to get her to learn to
walk properly on the lead and do perfect heelwork or at least stop
pulling all the time.

Does it work on a
really strong dog?
When we were out for a walk we met someone with a young boxer and they were
using the Easy Walk training harness. (This illustration is also from
Pet Planet) I asked them if it helped and they were brimming over
with praise. They told me that their dog had been a real puller
and they were struggling to hold him on an ordinary lead, but the
harness had calmed him right down. I must say I didn't see the
boxer pulling although of course he had to come over and say hello to
Jamie and they were having a good old sniff.

The Doggie Shop
has a selection
of haltis, harnesses and gentle leaders and you may also find
the Easy Walk on ebay.
Some of the live auctions are shown below.

There are also some similar
harnesses available that work on the same principle as the Easy Walk
and one of these is the Company of Animals non-pull harness. I
haven't road tested the product but Company of Animals is a very
reputable manufacturer.

Road Testing the Halti harness
The Halti harness is based on the same principles as the
double lead method above. I
bought one for Jamie and I've reviewed it here.

Pulling on the leadA no fuss method of dog training that shows a dog that it's possible to walk
on the lead without pulling.